


ghosts that we knew

by thekardemomme



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heart-to-Heart, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, References to Depression, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 13:41:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekardemomme/pseuds/thekardemomme
Summary: Point being, he’s not going to start now. He’s almost thirty years old, damn it. He’s not going to sit on a couch and have a wine-driven, tear-filled heart to heart. He’s just not.He stands instead. “I’m going to go for some fresh air, I think. Maybe it’ll help clear my head and I can start being a decent party guest.” He shuffles away before Jonas can protest or ask questions, heading for their balcony. It’s warm outside for the season, and the second the setting sun hits him, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.When he opens them again, he sees that one of the two chairs is occupied. He only has to glance for a second to see who’s in the other chair; he’d know that blond hair anywhere.





	ghosts that we knew

**Author's Note:**

> *warning for **implied suicide** and references to depression*
> 
> read the tags please! if you don’t like it, don’t read it, and please don’t leave mean comments. it’s much easier and less time consuming to just scroll past it :)
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you like it :)

Isak had been over the party the moment it started.

There had been a time, many years ago now, when he enjoyed mindless drinking and dancing. When he went to pregames on Fridays and Saturdays, and then the actual parties, and sometimes even the afterparties. But he’s older now, 29 this coming June, and he doesn’t really like it anymore. He doesn’t see any fun in it.

Especially considering this party had less dancing and more wine-drinking. There was a charcuterie board on the coffee table and empty chatter about careers and marriages and who’s having a baby and who’s getting a divorce. Isak doesn’t normally notice how much older he’s gotten, but at times like these it’s hard to forget.

Jonas sits next to him on the couch, knocks their knees together. Isak knows what he’s going to say before he says it. “You look like someone died.” He says it every time Isak looks bored or sad or the like, and it stopped being funny years ago.

“Maybe someone did,” Isak mumbles. “This party certainly has.”

“Hey, Eva tried her best.”

“Yeah.” Isak takes a gulp of wine and wishes that his tolerance was as low as it used to be. Alcohol hardly does anything to him anymore.

Jonas sighs helplessly. Isak hates that he’s putting such a damper on their party, but he can’t help it. It’s boring. And Isak has long since forgotten how to properly conceal his emotions—if he ever knew how. Sometimes it’s questionable.

Isak scans his eyes across the room, looking everyone over. Most of the girls are sitting around the kitchen counter talking about god knows what and laughing between sips of wine. The guys are spread out in groups of twos and threes, probably talking about the same boring shit the girls are talking about. There’s a drunk couple making out in the entry hall and Isak’s pretty sure he saw Magnus disappear into the spare bedroom with his girlfriend about twenty minutes ago, and those are the only two things making this party semi-interesting. At a bare minimum.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Jonas asks, and Isak shrugs. He’s not really thinking of anything other than how much he doesn’t want to be here, and Jonas already knows that. “I don’t get what’s up with you, man. You’ve been so weird lately.”

“Weird how?”

“Weird like being the obnoxious dick who can’t even pretend to enjoy being at a party with his friends, for starters.” Isak winces. “And, just… I don’t know. Withdrawn, I guess. It’s like you’ve retreated back inside your head. Like when we were in school and you were having your whole sexuality crisis or whatever, and you stopped talking to me about real shit. You closed off on me. You’re doing that again.” He looks at Isak critically, as if coming to the realization that Isak _must_ be hiding something. “Is everything okay?”

Isak shrugs, “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d tell you if something was wrong.”

“Would you?”

Scoffing, Isak shakes his head. He knows it’s wrong to lie to Jonas’s face like this, and act offended that Jonas would accuse him of doing the exact thing he’s doing. But he doesn’t want Jonas to know. He doesn’t want anyone to know. He just wants to keep it in his own mind, even if it destroys him. Better him than anyone else.

Isak’s never been one for vulnerability. Ever since he was in high school, he’s kept things to himself. He moved into a stranger’s basement rather than reach out for help. He sabotaged his best friend’s relationship rather than talk to him about what he was going through. He went to great lengths to conceal his sexuality and didn’t even consider coming out until someone gave him a reason to. Hell, it took him forever to be able to comfortably open up to his boyfriend. And Even made everything easy.

Point being, he’s not going to start now. He’s almost thirty years old, damn it. He’s not going to sit on a couch and have a wine-driven, tear-filled heart to heart. He’s just not.

He stands instead. “I’m going to go for some fresh air, I think. Maybe it’ll help clear my head and I can start being a decent party guest.” He shuffles away before Jonas can protest or ask questions, heading for their balcony. It’s warm outside for the season, and the second the setting sun hits him, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, he sees that one of the two chairs is occupied. He only has to glance for a second to see who’s in the other chair; he’d know that blond hair anywhere.

He steps forward and presses a kiss to the top of Even’s head before coming around and sitting in the chair next to him, scooting it just the tiniest bit (or, okay, a lot) closer to him.

“Hi,” Isak grins, unable to fight it when Even looks over at him.

“Hi to you, too,” Even murmurs. He’s squinting against the sunlight, and Isak wants to kiss along every line on his face. “How’s the party?”

Isak groans, “Boring. My life has become so mundane that it physically pains me.” He looks away from Even, then. He can’t bear to look at the love of his life when he says, “I don’t know how much longer I can do it.”

“Do what, baby?”

“Everything. I don’t know.” He sighs, looking down at the chair. It’s wooden. He traces the lines and circles in the wood with his finger, trying not to press hard enough to get splinters. “It’s just so… I just… It’s hard to explain. But I know I don’t really have to explain it to you. You know better than most what it’s like to feel like I feel.”

“No,” Even whispers, “only you can feel what you feel.” He takes Isak’s hand in his, and a lump rises in Isak’s throat at the feel of Even’s fingers intertwined with his. “But you don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t know how. I have some ideas on how you feel. Just, like, existentially tired? Like you’re alive and you don’t particularly want to die, you just want to not exist.”

Isak nods weakly, finally looking back over at Even. There’s no tears in Even’s eyes, but Isak’s own are starting to sting. “I never knew how much things could hurt until now,” Isak admits, his bottom lip trembling with every syllable. “And I feel selfish. Like all of these people want to help me and I just shut them out, you know? I’m pushing away everybody who’s ever meant jack shit to me all because I… I can’t deal with it on my own, Even, and I don’t know how to help others deal with it, too. How fucking stupid is that? I won’t accept help because I don’t know how to help myself. God.”

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Even quickly says, moving out of his chair and standing behind Isak’s. He wraps his arms around Isak’s neck and rests his chin on Isak’s shoulder, pressing little kisses to his cheek. “You’re entitled to feeling like that. No one expects you to be perfectly okay. They have an inkling of what you’re going through and they understand, okay, I promise.”

“I don’t know…”

“Baby,” Even whispers, hot and directly into his ear, “have I ever broken a promise to you?”

Isak tilts his head to the side so Even can pepper more kisses and love bites there. Even, of course, happily takes the hint. “Of course not,” Isak murmurs back, letting his eyes slip closed once more. “Of course not.”

“Then trust me on this, okay? Everything will be alright.” Even pauses. He pulls back from kissing Isak’s neck and starts brushing at the curls above his ear, drawing little patterns into the skin. “I love you. You know that, right?”

The tears that had been stinging Isak’s eyes finally start to fall as he nods, and he reaches up to lace their fingers together again. “I know. I love you, too. So fucking much I feel like I could die from it sometimes.” It wasn’t meant to be a joke, but Even chuckles anyway. “I miss you so much.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

The warm touch of Even’s arms leaves then, and Isak turns to watch Even sit down. Only, Even doesn’t sit back down. Instead, Isak hears the click of the sliding glass door opening and closing. He turns around to see if Even had really picked that time to go back inside, but finds himself faced with Adrian instead.

“Jonas sent me to check on you,” he explains, stepping forward and sitting down on the chair that Even had been occupying. “Something about you thinking really hard. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

Isak glances out over the balcony, thinks about Even and his touch and his whispers.

“I don’t know,” Isak admits. He figures he at least owes Adrian some honesty. They’ve been dating for five months almost, and Isak’s been the shittiest boyfriend ever. Or, well, at least he has been _mentally,_ because practically every waking thought he has is about Even. And it’s not any fault of Adrian’s, he should be Isak’s perfect guy. He should make Isak leaps and bounds happier than anyone else ever has. Isak should be moving on.

But he isn’t, and that’s that. It’s just Adrian’s own dumb luck that he got stuck falling for a man whose heart will never stop falling for someone else.

Adrian scoots closer and smooths his hand across Isak’s hair. “Tell me,” he encourages. His voice is sweet and smooth and nothing like Even’s at all, Isak notes.

“Do you remember my ex-boyfriend Even?” He asks, and Adrian nods slowly. Adrian has, understandably, always felt a jealousy towards Even. It’s like he knows that Even was the great love of Isak’s life and that if Even ever came calling, Isak would probably follow him to the ends of the earth no questions asked. “Something happened. With him, I mean.”

The following several moments of silence and the stricken look on Adrian’s face clue Isak in to how that sounded, but before he can backtrack, Adrian finds his voice.

“What do you mean ‘something happened’? Something like you cheating on me, or something like him trying to make a move, or something—”

“Something like he died,” Isak blurts, and Adrian’s face falls instantaneously. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“What? When? How?”

Isak shrugs, “Like, a month ago. I went to the funeral, I just lied and told you that I was going on a trip with my mom.” The tears overflow again, and Isak tries to suppress them by pressing his hand to his mouth. He can’t imagine what must be going through Adrian’s mind, and he doesn’t want to make it any worse.

“Oh, my God. Isak, I… I’m so fucking sorry.” He starts to move closer, but the movement is aborted when Isak moves farther away. “How did you find out?”

“His mom called me. It was, like, a few hours after… After he called me, and I didn’t pick up.”

“You didn’t—”

“I thought it would be disrespectful to you,” Isak barrels on, “taking a call from my ex-boyfriend. So I let it ring out. Told myself that if it was important, he’d leave a message and I could call back. Obviously it was important, but, well. He didn’t leave a message.”

Adrian frowns, “And you didn’t call back. Oh, Isak.”

“He’s all I can think about sometimes. Like, God, if only I would’ve answered the phone, I could’ve…”

“Hey, no. This isn’t your fault. Not even a little bit. Come here.” Adrian moves closer again, arms wide, but Isak just shakes his head.

“I think I want to be alone,” Isak says. He’s been alone this entire past five weeks, and he’s not ready for Adrian to share this with him. He wants to mourn on his own. “I’ll meet you inside in a few minutes, though, okay? I promise.”

Adrian, ever the accommodating boyfriend, nods. He stands and kisses the top of Isak’s head four times before heading back inside—not without sparing him a million backwards glances, of course. Isak pretends not to notice them.

When the sliding glass door closes again, Isak finally lets the sob that’d he’d been harboring to rip out of his chest. He nearly doubles over with the force of it, clutching at his stomach as he cries. He feels a gentle hand on his back, rubbing in smooth circles the way he used to when Isak was throwing up after drinking too much at a good party.

“Let it out,” Even murmurs, pressing his lips to Isak’s clothed shoulder blade. “I’m right here. I’m always right here, I promise.”

Most of the time, all Isak wants is Even there. Right next to him always. He craves Even something fierce, like he’s a part of Isak away from him. Like he’d been forcefully carved out of Isak’s body and ripped away, and Isak could only live so long without him. God, Isak missed him so fucking terribly all the fucking time.

But there’s a perfectly good boyfriend waiting inside, and Isak’s chest is starting to ache so much that he worries he’s losing the capacity to love that man back. He’s too full up with loving and missing Even to let anyone inside, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can do that. How much longer he can _live_ with that.

“Sometimes,” Isak rasps out around sobs, as Even comes around him and kneels in front of him, pressing his lips to Isak’s forehead, “I wish I could forget about you. It’d be so much easier than this.”

“I know, baby,” Even whispers. “I wish I could make it easier for you.”

Isak looks up, tilts his chin so his lips are aligned with Even’s. “I love you,” he whispers, and Even nods. “I love you so much.”

Even opens his mouth, perhaps to respond or perhaps to kiss him, but he’s interrupted by the sliding glass door again. Isak turns to see Jonas there, his eyes clouded with confusion and then, as Isak sobs again, understanding.

“Adrian told me,” Jonas says, coming over and wrapping his arm around Isak’s shoulders. Isak falls into the embrace and lets himself cry. “You didn’t have to carry this alone, you know. I’m always here for you.” Isak sobs again, and Jonas holds him tighter.

“I don’t want to forget him, Jonas.”

“You won’t,” Jonas insists. “He’s always here with you. Always. You don’t ever have to let that go.”

Isak opens one eye and, through the cloud of tears, sees Even standing in the corner of the balcony watching them. He’s crying, too, but he smiles at Isak and blows him a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @medicineontour


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